Madeleine has a new bento (sent from Japan) this year – blue with a lucky white bunny. Today’s lunch (bottom photo) was a peanut butter sandwich, walnuts, cheese, whole grain crackers in the large section (pictured), plus a variety of other things, including our homemade granola bars, in the other compartment. The first photo is the lunch I just packed – a garden of pasta with shaved parmesan dotted with little cheesy flowers accompanied by a mini flower shaped cheese sandwich on homemade white bread.

These savory muffins are inspired by Cheddar, pancetta, and spring onion muffins in the August 2010 Delicious magazine that I picked up when we were in the UK. The concept, combined with the magic of Michael Ruhlman’s book Ratio, has created this new MHC muffin.

I’ve been looking for new options for the lunchboxes / bentos for this coming year, and this may well be part of the rotation, especially because they can be frozen. I like make ahead foods; it makes preparing bentos that much easier.